LONDON -- In the 25 years that she has lived in Japan, Geraldine Twilley has balanced her serious work with free-time fun. When she was a young woman on her own, going for the first time to Tokyo, she showed the enterprise and spiritedness that are still her characteristics. Currently she is in London on sabbatical leave, researching the Metropolitan Road Commission of 1826 to 1872. She said: "As an undergraduate I did a certain amount of work on the amalgamation of 14 toll roads in London, major routes still familiar to us today. This is a subject I have been interested in for a long time. Now I want to complete this work."
Geraldine is the only child of an Irish mother and an English father. Her sparkling Irishness comes through in her speech and her love of music and dance.
She was still very small when her family left Belfast for London. She said: "I keep a foot in each place. I'm lucky that way. Maybe my growing up with different cultures is one of the reasons I get on so well in Japan."